Lithographic newspaper printing presses for printing four single or multiple colored newspaper pages across the first and the second side of a running web (16-page presses) are generally known in the art and are used for printing single or multicolored daily or free newspapers.
From the applicant's Galaxy-series presses, it is known to employ blanket-to-blanket printing units having plate cylinders, each carrying two printing plates around and four printing plates across (8×2-design), whereby each printing plate carries the image of a corresponding newspaper page to be printed.
Owing to the double-size blanket cylinders and the corresponding double-size plate cylinders carrying two printing plates around the circumference of each cylinder, such 8×2-design presses usually comprise a high weight and are comparatively large in size and, therefore, require an expensive reinforced bottom plate or foundation for supporting the printing units and an enlarged pressroom space.
Furthermore, the paging flexibility of 8×2-design presses is generally comparatively low, and the page-break—the number of pages that have to be printed without producing a blank page in the printed product—of such presses usually amounts to four pages.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,335,663 purports to disclose a plate lock-up mechanism mounted to a single-size plate cylinder, on which altogether four conventional printing plates are mounted across the width of the cylinder. Although in the document it is mentioned, that the disclosed cylinder is a reversible cylinder which can be used in a newspaper printing press, it does neither describe nor show any details about a printing press.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,230,879 describes a plate lock-up mechanism for a double-size plate cylinder carrying four stereotype printing plates across and two of those plates around the circumference. The document gives no information about the kind of printing presses the cylinder can be used for.